Last night, Clerkenwell Tales hosted China Miéville and Voyager science-fiction author Cory Doctorow for a reading and signing. The demand was so great they moved the event venue from the store to the church next door to accomodate more people. If you get a chance, definitely check out Clerkenwell Tales — it’s a fantastic bookshop in London on a really interesting street with loads of restaurants and bars, well worth a visit.
An eager audience filled the church, sipping wine and tapping away at the most iPads I’ve ever seen in one room! Cory read a chilling passage from his YA novel For the Win and China changed his mind from reading a short story to reading a chapter from his latest book, Kraken. Then emcee Robert Sharp from English PEN led several interesting discussions, covering topics like writing by hand, Cory’s immense system of archiving, whether it’s necessary for authors to blog and all sorts of questions from twitter and from the audience.
- Left to right: Cory, China and Robert
There was a moment of drama as an audience member was taken ill (thankfully @booksellerpete has assured us that she is completely fine!), and the event spilled out onto Exmouth Market street — where the quick thinking event organisers brought out tables for Cory and China to sign books – and the wine continued to flow out of doors! Speaking of iPads, I think Cory even got the chance to sign one… now that’s pretty cool.
